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Men are so happily absorbed in their own affairs and indulge in such self-deception that it is difficult for them not to fall victim to this plague; and some efforts to protect oneself from flatterers involve the risk of becoming despised...”

Machiavelli was only an expert in rulers that were men. You have a strong head on your shoulders, one that couldn't ever be affected by stupid compliments given. Sweet talking never works on you, seeing as your cousin complains regularly about how he never gets personal favors no matter how hard he begs. 

“According to Machiavelli, flattery only benefits the flatterer, so one should be wary of any errant compliments that one may receive.”

Sweet talking never works.  Sweet talking never works.  Sweet talking never works. 

You reluctantly drag your eyes away from the textbook and find that your private study room’s door has been cracked open so a head can peek through - a frustratingly handsome, hateful, raindrop-covered head on a frustratingly handsome, hateful, raindrop-covered man. The only thing stopping you from yelling at him to get out is the fact that you’re in the library, and thus would get kicked out yourself for raising your voice.

That means Jaehyun Jeong, the most irritating person ever, can look at you with his lazy, sexy, knowing stare, and push your buttons, “You look especially beautiful tonight, your highness.”

He’s pushing your buttons because you’re swaddled in an old, torn UCLA sweater with your hair all over the place and your socks mismatching. And he looks like he stepped out of a Prada catalogue with his leather jacket and silk scarf and silver sparkly earrings and wavy, dirty blonde surfer boy hair in some kind of ridiculous halo. His mere presence is designed to aggravate you in every possible way. 

“How many times have I told you not to call me that,” you snap. “I don’t use my title in informal settings.” 

Since you became the crown princess of America at fifteen, the start of every semester used to be the same song and dance. Your teacher sees your name on the roster, panics, calls you your majesty from the start - which isn’t even right since you’re not the queen yet - and doesn’t learn your actual name. Your classmates do the exact same thing, and they are far less nice about it. You didn’t learn to start meeting with your professors ahead of time until graduate school this year, but luckily now everyone knows you as y/n, the political science PhD candidate, and not y/n, the princess. 

Except for one person - who has never cared much for any of your rules, in general. 

“Ah, so we’ve crossed into informality." Jaehyun steps inside the room without your permission, strike one. He crosses his arms and leans up onto the doorframe - cocky, strike two - so he can get a better vantage point of your panic when he teases, strike three,  “Perks of seeing each other naked every night for six months now, I guess.”

You flinch and then go hot in a record speed of time, he notices and laughs loudly, which makes you flinch again. Did he have to say it that openly? Jesus, you do not need the entire UCLA graduate school knowing what poor choices you like to make in your free time.

You grit your teeth so hard you might need a mouthguard after this, rearrange your textbooks, and grumble, “Is there a point to you wasting my time or am I supposed to be entertained by this display? I would like to not be distracted.”

Irritating and distracting are two adjectives that go hand in hand when it comes to him. 

“Why are you studying? We’re on school break. So you may as well, you know, take a break,” he says. It comes off innocent until he adds on, “You’re not going to beat me anyways.”

The irritation evolves into genuine dislike. 

This whole laughable situation started when he ruined your life at the beginning of the semester. You had no problem your four years of undergrad - there was no drama, your professors liked you, your classmates saw you as just another student and not someone to take advantage of. Your grandmother even praised you as to how your political savvy was developing in the years you took off of school.

You got her to cave and let you apply to the UCLA graduate program and Jaehyun busted in at the same time, promptly started to give you hell in all of your classes. He made it his job to show off that he knew how to run a country better than you - despite you being, you know, actual royalty, and him being some random dude from Venice Beach or wherever. It’s the most loathsome situation because you can’t actually jab at his intelligence. He’s smart but you’re smarter but not to the point where you’d be able to win this argument. 

Your lack of answer propels him into being even more cocky, “There’s the grad students’ winter date mixer. Wanna be my date?” 

You meet Jaehyun’s gaze, his cheeky brown eyes sparkling even in the dull library lighting, and make sure he sees your insanely large eye roll. You wouldn’t be caught dead at a date mixer here in the first place, wearing an itchy dress and making small talk with faculty heads. There’s no chance in hell you’d do that all with him, too. That’s not what this relationship is, you don’t roll up to events together and hold hands and laugh at similar things. You don’t. 

“Riiiight,” he says knowingly. “We can never be seen in public because everyone will wonder why I stooped this low.” 

“No. I just don’t want to go on a date with you,” you snap.

Going on a date with Jaehyun would defeat the purpose of making sure the past six months was nothing more than arguing in class and having sex when the arguing just wasn’t enough. 

The first time was after the worst argument you’d ever gotten into - a screaming match in a debate about constitutional monarchy versus democracy that Professor Byun almost reported you both to the dean. You’d fumed all week, texted your cousin every day that there was someone in your class you wanted to kill and he said you should go for it and that he’d help you hide the body.

Then, that weekend, you saw Jaehyun at the small ‘welcome to school’ kickback that your program was throwing. You were trying to avoid him, but you went up to the eleventh floor lounge of your building and it went to hell. You interrupted his conversation with some pretty girl that wasn’t even in your program, and resumed your arguing. Somehow, by the end of the night, you found yourself splayed in his bed then on top of him, his pretty fingers untying your dress, irritating mouth displaying its talents upon yours, his intoxicatingly bare body caught between yours and his headboard.

You found out in the morning that he offered to host the party on purpose just to antagonize you into admitting the hate between you two walked the precarious borderline of lust. That just made you even more annoyed, sent you storming from his bed before he could try to sleep with you again.

And despite vowing on your family legacy to never do something that idiotic again… you did.

He tried to snap at your opinions on Napoleon in your French Revolution unit, and you fucked him to shut up in the bathrooms by the lecture hall and never let him hear the end of it when you scored higher on the exam. After that, your defense of Catherine the Great bothered him so much he left several noticeable hickies on your neck in the middle of an intensely hot September week and didn’t seem one bit remorseful that you couldn’t wear a tank top. Most of the time, the act is punctuated with annoyed grunts of I loathe you or I can’t stand you, and there is decidedly nothing else going on... like dates or romance.

Hate sex is too uncouth a term, doesn’t quite encompass the bizarre nature of this relationship, but it’ll do. 

He doesn’t want to go on a real date with you, either, and does some really annoying clarification to make that point clear, “A date mixer.”

“Whatever." Same difference.

When Jaehyun senses you’re not going to cave to his technicalities, he goes right for what he’s best at - being gross and as self possessed, “So I can bring another girl and make out with her all night? Take her home? Give her the pillowcase you like?”

Hate sex isn’t the right term - because it’s not hateful, not all the time. 

There are times when you’ll be in his bed and get half-tangled in his comforter trying to make it back home in one piece. He’ll grab your wrist with such a gentle touch and lean over to kiss you with a noticeable lack of aggression and ask you to stay. Or you’ll be studying in the library and he’ll come in to do work, kiss hello you right on the curve of your neck where it meets your shoulder without a rude word to accompany it. Plus, there are times - and these times are a secret - where he’ll invite you over with a saucy text, and you’ll end up in his bed, sure. But your clothes will stay on because you’re far too exhausted from an official event or too much homework, and you’ll fall asleep curled into his side, on this silk pillowcase he ordered from Amazon that was supposed to keep your hair nice.

“Do whatever you want,” you gripe.

The subtle, pleasant memories are ruined by the idea of him sharing them with others. You get it - you’re just having sex, you’re not dating, you’re not remotely committed. You’re sure he’s charming any and all available prospects in your department and at the university as a whole, too. But you don’t want to know, you don’t want that blatant confirmation right in your face. 

Jaehyun eyes you with disbelief, and innocently wonders, “Doesn’t bother you at all?”

“Not a bit,” you respond, making sure you sound less put off than you did before. He is not as smart as he thinks he is. He’ll never get you to admit to this, never.

Seeing you nonplussed must be an aphrodisiac for him. You’ve spent this whole argument separated by the length of your desk, but he leans right over it in this disgusting display of his muscled arms, and with his lecherous grin as the backdrop, he wonders, “Not even if I brought Yeeun? I saw her leaving for the bars on my way over.”

Yeeun Jang, the UCLA students’ social chair, YouTube celebrity, and Miss California all at once. She always makes sure she shows up to whatever party the political science program is throwing even though she’s a junior in undergrad studying art history. You don’t need to be a PhD candidate to figure out why.

After you’d slept together for the first time, Jaehyun manned a booth next to Yeeun's at the freshman career fair by accident. He was on every slide of her story even though he sent you sexts for the entire hour - that you ignored. The rager to celebrate the end of your first finals? She showed up at the bar with a fake, he played two rounds of beer pong with her that they both lost to you in, and you ended up in his shower not fifteen minutes later. Halloween? She dressed up like Kim Possible, tried to sit in his lap and play with the unnecessary fake chest of his Captain America costume. You, in turn, spent the whole party ignoring him and flirting with every guy around, even in your Guy Fieri outfit.

But in some turn of events, you still ended up leaving together and you giggled drunkenly in his bed, anger forgotten, as he pulled the fake goatee off your face to kiss you. 

“Go flatter her. It’ll work since she doesn’t know Machiavelli,” you deadpan.

You’re not going to entertain this anymore. You know as well as he that what gets Jaehyun roaring more than anything is someone who can stand their ground against him. He won’t get any better than you. 

He won’t ever stop trying to get a rise out of you, though. He just straightens back up, fixes his irritatingly perfect scarf around his neck, and says, “I will.”

“Good,” you snap back.

You don’t let him get close enough to kiss your neck. And no, you do not watch him go strolling out, hands in his pockets, whistling like he owns the place. 

—

You will not let anything about this night stop you from getting through chapter twenty-three of The Prince. It’s winter break and the next quarter won’t resume until the end of February, but there’s no rest for the weary. Grandmama quizzes you on one chapter every Tuesday tea, and you are on an impressive five-week streak of getting a very good y/n. You are not having that imbecile break the streak.  Though, honestly, you can’t stop thinking about whether or not Jaehyun is actually going to go hook up with Yeeun after so many months of dodging her advances. 

Never mind. Maybe you just need a drink instead. 

There’s a knock on the door, and this time the, “Your highness,” is not one that sends you spiraling into a two pronged cyclone of hate and attraction. 

You greet your cousin with the preferred formality that is required for all your interactions, “Lord Lee, hello," but once he’s bowed to you, your goofy smile can’t be kept away anymore, “What’s up, Marcus!” 

“Hey, Cinders! Bring it in!” he trills, before he leaps over the desk and tackles you into a hug. 

Lord Mark Lee - your second cousin, and more importantly, your best friend and personal advisor (not official, he claimed the title to make himself feel important). You didn't realize he'd be back in LA from backpacking in Europe this early, didn't realize you'd be able to celebrate together. Which he’s free to do, you know, since his father is not in the official line of succession and he has no responsibilities or rules. Case in point, his hair is bright and you mean fluorescent, bright red under his hoodie. His sunburnt face and his hair together make him look like a tomato, your grandmother is going to make such a big fuss. 

But you’re just so happy to see him, you squeeze his face and warble, “I’m so happy you could make it for tomorrow!” Yet when Mark’s smile does not widen in the way that you want it to, you groan right away, “Oh no. You’re here because Grandmama sent you.” 

He wouldn’t just come home from Italy, where he sent you a text daily about a different cute Italian girl he’d get gelato with, if there wasn’t some task he had to complete for his self-appointed title.  He takes his iPad out of his briefcase, and the cold dread slithers down your spine. Slithers is a nice word for that feeling, too, the sight basically knocks the wind right out of you. 

Mark glances at your strangled face, then sighs, “You’re turning twenty-five. You know the law. Engaged one month after, married a year after that.”

“Noooooo,” you groan, putting your face in your hands and slumping right over the desk. “Fuck me.”

Utterly ridiculous and sexist and misogynistic. Like, how does it make sense that any idiot man in this country can become king by himself and Parliament would be fine with it, but since you weren’t born with a dick, you have to get married at a certain point to a certain person to get approval to be queen. Ridiculous! And sexist! And misogynistic! You’re just waiting for when this is brought up in modern American government class next semester, oh, you’d love to hear Jaehyun’s thoughts on the matter. He’d probably be all for it, or something.

“Putting us back fifty years, votes for women, free the nipple, blah blah. I’m here for you.” Mark pats you on the back in sympathy, having heard this argument many times over many years. However, he is a man on a mission now as he takes the tablet, opens to a freaking Powerpoint, and shoves it in your hands, “I do not want to get put in jail, so I’m making you.”

The guy on the first slide has his hair so neatly done he looks like a mannequin. You hate it. You hate every single thing about it. 

You grimace. “I have to pick one?”

“You’re going to dance with most, if not all of them, tomorrow. Better get a head start.” He’s giving you an underhanded advantage, the brutal insider tea, no sugarcoating. You know Grandmama tells him everything - for all her amazing qualities, she is a terrible gossip, and Mark eats it up. 

You remember something utterly important at that moment, then warn him, “Absolutely no Moon spawn.”

Mark goes purple at the mere mention of that name. “Who do you think I am? A psycho? Grandmama would definitely kill me.”

There is no way in hell your grandmother would ever let you entertain someone related to Duke Taeil Moon, the Parliament member that had given her hell for the past, what? fifteen years? He’s made it his mission to discredit you and your claim to the throne in favor of his anonymous, caveman nephew you’ve never met. It will be a cold day in hell before you ever entertain them.

Satisfied you’re on the same page, you swipe to the first slide on the tablet and cringe at the sight of super unkempt black hair. You don’t even pretend to be entertained by this, you can feel the dissatisfaction taking over when you parrot out what’s in the text box, “Okay… Baron Lucas Wong, 22—, 

“No!” Mark exclaims, jolting in his seat to reach for the iPad and swipe that photo away. “No, no, we’re not even going to go into the details there. No.”

“Alright, alright,” you agree. “Jeez. That bad?” 

You don’t even know why that Lucas person was an option, until you realize this is an official listing - this is what Parliament put together for you to consider, who they consider suitable for you. If you were already down on this guy, you feel shit out of luck now. 

Mark moves on without giving that person one more minute of time. “Yes. Next. Duke Junmyeon Kim, 31—,”

"He looks like a librarian, next."

You swipe to the next slide and nearly drop the damn thing when you see a chiseled, familiar face on the screen.

“Timothée Chalamet?! Timothée Chalamet, are you serious?” you yelp, going downright giddy at the thought of meeting your favorite celebrity crush. Your grandmother has never been one to pull strings with her title, but she took you to the premiere of Dune just so you could see him from afar. He was beautiful. You peek down at the screen, do a very happy dance in your seat, then proclaim, “Yes! Yes, yes, this is it! This is the one!"

You have no problem getting married to someone if it’s Timothée freaking Chalamet. You’ll thank the patriarchy for that one. 

Mark plucks the tablet out of your excited fingers with a sly little look on his face and even littler words, “Sorry. He’s technically a commoner, so no can do.”

“Mark,” you grumble.

He knows that you have power to do so many bad things to him and the only reason why you don’t is because you love him. He apologizes before you smite him with the hand of royalty, “Sorry, I snuck that in. I like looking at him, let me have a man crush, okay?” You swat him on his stupid red hair yet feel grateful that he’d put in something funny to cheer you up. Because you get right back to business, swiping over to an older, handsome man, “Next. Sir Kyuhyun Cho, he’s thirty-four—,”

You wave that one off as soon as the age out of Mark’s mouth, “That is ancient. Next.” 

An angelic face with the most pristine, youthful features follows, “Prince Jisung Park, nineteen—,”

“Nineteen? Nineteen is a fetus, he probably still watches cartoons and drinks milk at every meal!” you fuss, stealing the tablet back and swiping through the next several options that are all either teenagers or approaching retirement. “Listen, I want someone my age, okay? Can we sort from low to high or something?”

You are not wasting away being someone’s trophy wife, nor are you raising a child before you have one of your own. You swipe, swipe, and swipe some more, then settle on this model-esque shot of a guy with stunning aqua hair and an intense stare. That’s more like it. You let out a breath of stress, then read, “Okay great. Ten Lee, no current title, but parents with enough connection to the lineage to be considered. In art school, gives dance lessons, is really quite cute.”

See? Now this is more of what you’re looking for. You’re only really trying to tick three boxes off - handsome, smart and nice. This guy looks like he hits all three. 

“Oh yeah, Ten!” Mark scrolls through the additional notes at the bottom, then recognizes the man, “I’ve met him before! His boyfriend plays tennis with me on Thursdays when I’m not in Europe.”

Something seems off with that statement. What’s off, why did what Mark say make you pause for a second-,

“Oh.”

“Oh.”

You and your cousin lock eyes at the same time, realize why the mention of Ten’s boyfriend is a bit off considering your conversation on marriage and dissolve into giggles, pumping your fists in solidarity. Mark pats your hand with an apologetic laugh, “Okay, sorry. But we should hang out, I think you’d like him.”

You want to live in this world where it’s cool for you to meet Ten Lee and his boyfriend and hang out in your spare time and not have to swipe by him in a Powerpoint. All of these men, save for the ones Mark hated, would be justifiable platonic companions - ones you’re sure you’d enjoy having a conversation with at the palace, or dinner with in a group. Now you’re scrutinizing them like pieces of livestock, which doesn’t make you feel good.

Leaning back in your chair, head heavy with responsibility, you idly pluck at the collar for your sweater as the familiar self-doubt comes creeping back. You rub your forehead and sigh, “I just wish this wasn’t so hard.”

Getting married is about being in love, is it not? This is just a chore.

Mark leans all the way back in his chair too, so the only thing helping it prop up is his fat head against the wall. Then, he expresses the kind of empathy that is characteristic of why he’s your favorite person, “I get it, the rules are archaic and outdated, but you could pick someone that you'd have half a shot at being happy with. What do you like? Let me help you. We’ve been friends for our whole lives and I’ve literally never had a clue about what kind of guy you like.” 

Well, one, you don’t ever talk about that stuff with him because there’s a non-zero chance it could make it back to your grandmother. Two, the last time you had a boyfriend ended in total disaster and you never want to go through with that again, and three, it’s Mark! He’s your cousin, you can’t just talk about boys with him!

“I don’t know. I don’t think about that stuff a lot because I have so much other stuff to worry about." You’re going to become queen one day. You’re going to have to rule a country, take care of a group of people, and you cannot be stressing about whether or not a guy likes you. That’s why you suppose you see the appeal of an arranged marriage - they’re stuck with you no matter what, you don’t have to concern yourself with flirting or dating.

But Mark is just trying to help, so you answer with what you’d been thinking of before, “Handsome, smart, nice. I mean, those are all obvious, no?”

“Elaborate.”

“Handsome. Tall but not too tall it’s ridiculous. Light hair. Kind eyes. Handsome like he could look good in anything and knows it but somehow doesn’t flaunt it.” 

You still remember what Jaehyun was wearing the first time you ran into each other, right before the first class of the semester. It was a literal running into - you were handing out the syllabus outside because you knew Professor Byun from undergrad, Jaehyun was late, and crashed right into you, spilled his iced coffee on your blouse. He got flustered badly, thinking you’d be mad, but you hated that blouse since it was a gift from Duke Moon that your grandmother made you keep. Listening to your new classmate’s profuse apologies, you hid your gawk at his ripped jeans and salt-stained henley and semi-curly blonde hair, flopped into his face because he’d just come back from a surf, and felt woozy when his brown eyes held yours for just a little too long. 

“Smart, passionate about higher education and greatness for accomplishment, with a competitive edge to let no one get in the way.” 

The arguing isn’t a flaw, it’s a strength of his - Jaehyun is so assured in his beliefs and, despite disagreeing with you on many things, he always stands firm in his principles. He wants to help people achieve the general peace and prosperity the same way that you do. He doesn't settle for less just to make people happy, has never lost a debate to get something extra out of you. You wouldn't like him at all if he was spineless. 

“And nice,” you sigh, caught in the eye of a storm of wistful romanticism that isn't quite you. “Not too kind to the point where his sincerity is questioned. Not too mean to where being with him doesn’t make sense. Just annoyingly cocky enough that every time he is nice it kinda takes your breath away. You know?”

Thanksgiving break. You were already pissed off that you had an exam the literal day of Thanksgiving, but the debate the day before - on criminal punishments in oligarchal societies - made you see red. Jaehyun wouldn’t take any other point of views into consideration, or listen to any of your arguments and you flipped him off in the hallway behind his back when class was over. Then.... he somehow found you in the library later that night, had a grocery bag in hand. Sandwiches, one for you, one for him, with turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce inside. He said since you can’t go see your gran because of exams, kissed your neck on that very, very loved spot, and that was it. 

“Wow. Okay, specific.” Mark makes a strange face, and when you try to get back on track from your romantic tangent, he’s already searching for someone to fit that impossible mold. He holds up the tablet after a little bit and offers, “How about…. him?”

The screen you’re looking at does not have a baby or a grandpa or a famous celebrity actor on it. Just the simple, handsome face of a young man around your age, with stunning, ashy-blonde-brown-silver hair and warm black eyes. Is Mark really that good?

“Lord Eunwoo Cha, twenty-six,” you read the description off the bottom of the slide, and it doesn’t sound as chore-like as the others. You glance at his picture again to make sure it’s still a semi-match to your thoughts, and wryly tack on, “Somehow isn’t ugly or ancient or still a child, which sounds too good to be true. No boyfriend?”

Mark can barely conceal his proud grin. “Nope.”

The more you read, the more you feel like Mark really is that good - he took what would’ve been impossible to find, and distilled that into one agreeable human being, “Stanford, double major in math and physics. Works a kids hunger charity, plays soccer… aha, there’s the cockiness… is into graphic design as a hobby and wants to be a math teacher. Hm. Not b—,” 

Your computer dings where it’s been forgotten, and you move the screen to make sure Mark doesn’t eavesdrop when you see who they’re from. 

[11:52 pm] ugh: any chance you could get mr. tomato head to bounce?
[11:52 pm] ugh: trying not to get beheaded by the tribal council and all

That cyclone of hate and attraction picks back up, winds blowing you back and forth in intoxicating whiplash. Jaehyun calling your royal regulations the tribal council like you’re on Survivor or something, plus mocking your best friend’s hair color (despite you doing the same) are things that only make your hatred for him grow.

But you had no idea he was going to be back tonight after the date mixer… he really took Yeeun there and then left? 

“Can we pick this up again while I’m getting ready tomorrow? I have to study,” you interrupt Mark’s monologue, of which you heard literally nothing after reading the messages. You have a trump card of an excuse - you sigh and try to sound a bit stressed, “For tea.”

His head knocks against the wall when he realizes he interrupted you 'prepping for a lesson with your grandmother,' then fumbles to leave you alone, “Oh. Oh shit, yeah. You do that, Cinders.”  Perfect. He’s the perfect best friend. He pats you on the head like you’re a child, then starts off your quintessential goodbye, what you made up as kids after he started calling you Cinderella for short, “Love ya.” 

You smack his shoulder as he turns to go and chime in, “See ya.”

“Wouldn’t want to be ya!” Mark waves over his shoulder, then jogs right out of the study room and closes the door behind him. 

He’s left the tablet behind on purpose but you just shutter the picture of Lord Cha closed and stow it away in your bag so you won't be forced to look at it until tomorrow. Then you take a deep breath, one that induces all sorts of nerves in your extremities.

[11:57 pm] you: Let’s get this over with.

“Your highness.”

A disorienting amount of time passes from when you press send to when you hear Jaehyun’s deep voice coming through the door, but he must’ve been waiting for Mark to leave. They’ve never met, though you suppose he’s heard enough - in those times when discuss things beyond sex and bickering - about your cousin to know who he is.

He’s flushed, with the cold or alcohol… or lust, you don’t know, and the possibility of the latter curls a strange grimace into your throat. That makes your words come out not as assured as you’d want them to be, “Shouldn’t you have a hand up a skirt or two right now?”

His eyebrows lower in hooded ferocity, preparing himself for another cagematch back and forth. “Whew. You sure it didn’t bother you?”

Maybe you should’ve gone with a different answer, he shouldn’t be able to read you so damn easily. It didn’t bother you, the idea of him going to the date mixer, kissing every girl there and having sex with one… or two… or more of them - because it’s been four hours and you’ve seen what he can do in way less - it doesn’t bother you. It doesn’t. Really.

“As always, is there a point to this?” you gripe, gesturing back to the books you haven’t moved since he left. “It’s getting late and I don’t want to spend all night in the library.” 

“What time is it?”

“Time for you to leave me the hell alone. Or get a watch or whatever it is that will get you to shut the hell up!”

He growls so loud you look for the librarian in fear, “Just tell me the time, woman!”

You hate that he sometimes refers to you as woman, hate that it gives you this bizarre, primal thrill. Against your consciousness telling you not to, you do what he demands -  you peek over at your computer, blare the time out, “12:05,” and when you look back up…

You see Jaehyun standing in your study room, dusted in another sheen of rain from the walk here from the party, holding a bouquet of lilac-colored asters. 

There’s no aggression in his tone, expression, or gaze anymore. He gets… he gets cute, these crinkles by his nose come bursting out at the same time as his gorgeous dimples do by his smile, and he murmurs, “Happy birthday.”

Your fingers clutch in the collar of your sweater in an instant, you get so freaking shy so fast you have no idea what to do with yourself. See? Just annoyingly cocky enough that every time he’s nice it takes your breath away, you knew what you were talking about. You’re breathless and can only murmur back, “How did you know? I never said.” 

It’s not like you ever had the need to announce to him while you were in bed together, Hey! My birthday is in January! Like, you don’t even know when his is, either. 

Jaehyun’s smile only gets deeper, like he finds this - and you - both amusing and charming. He twists the bouquet up in his pretty hands when he explains, “Everybody knows that the princess turns twenty-five today. It’s all over the news that her fancy party is the country’s event of the year that I couldn’t even get an invitation to.”

You rarely, if ever, apologize to Jaehyun for anything. But at that, you just have to whisper, “Sorry.” 

You’re getting a royal ball thrown for you tomorrow, and you didn’t even have permission to invite the guy you’ve been seeing - sleeping with, whatever. You would’ve invited him, you know without a doubt he’d look like a god in a suit.

“It’s okay,” he concedes, and you’ve never heard him half as accepting or genuinely kind.... “As long as I get to spend the night with you.”

You can’t even be mad at the lecherous grin that overtakes Jaehyun’s face. He went to a party at which you’re sure he messed around with at least five other girls, then showed up here when the clock struck twelve. It’s the uncouth and sideways of Cinderella, but still. He came back to take you home with him.

You duck your cheek into your shoulder, getting even shyer as you poke for some kind of verbal confirmation, “Won’t the other girls be sad?”

“Terribly,” he jokes, before he gets soft again with his request, “Twenty minutes at my place? Can you escape Baldy?”

You hate that he still calls your security guard that, but you really don’t. You don’t, your mind can’t wrap itself around why you hate him, not when Jaehyun is coming closer to your desk, so close that you can tell that he used that vanilla cologne that’s on his dresser and looks far too expensive, and makes his presence feel all the more intoxicating. He bends over your chair, and his whispered repetition of can you? waltzes right into your ear in utmost seduction. You feel your cheeks pooling with lava as you quickly nod in affirmation. He sets the asters down in your lap, palms your arm gently with his whole hand, and presses his mouth right to the back juncture of your neck. Even through the fabric of your sweater, he manages to place a perfect ring of goosebumps there. 

Then, he easily strides back out of your private room like nothing happened at all, leaves the door wide open so that everyone can see what a state you’re in. 

He’s going to get you in big, big trouble.

—

You don’t get how your bodyguard can sit for hours in silence, but he does, so you never pester him to turn on the music. Not even now, when you get in the passenger seat of his car and wish that he had something blasting to cover up the criminally loud beating of your heart. 

Even the crinkle of the flowers in your nervous hands seems thunderous in the silent vehicle. And your normally calm, quiet, even voice feels like a scream, “I’m going to go home. I’m tired of studying.”

Kyungsoo nods his head without cracking a smile. “Ma’am.” 

That’s all he says. That’s all he ever says, you don’t make small talk and you don’t need to. That’s what Kyungsoo likes and to respect everything he’s ever done for you since you were fifteen, you do the same. When you officially took your place as the crown princess, you were assigned a security guard - this short, handsome man with a shaved head and a thousand yard stare who had few words to say. He knew how to do the job better than anyone else. He’s saved you from the paparazzi and grifters and backstabbers, plus an actual stalker once, more times than you can justifiably ever say thank you for.

So you baby him, buy him extravagant cookware that he’s too modest to spend money on, write him girly cards, hug him on his birthday even though he hates hugs, tell him school gossip - but not boy gossip - so he can be mildly entertained. He’s like your older brother and uncle and additional best friend all in one, yet the fact that he’s not just your employee makes you increasingly nervous. Because he knows you, he can read you better than anyone, it’s part of his job description.

He will one hundred percent see through your anxious small talk as he drives you the fifteen minutes back to your apartment. But you power through it anyways, “Did you have a nice night, Kyungsoo?”

Yeah, like he enjoyed sitting outside the library in his car all night. At least now that you’re in graduate school, he graduated, too - from standing by the door of whatever room you were in to standing by the building, a compromise you forced your grandmother into. 

“Pleasant enough, ma’am,” he answers, keeping it no-nonsense. Your fingers clench around the plastic in your lap, and that sends his attention right there. He clears his throat as he looks back to the road, then continues the conversation where you don't want him to go, “Flowers?”

Flowers. You know. You can’t believe it.

“Mark had them sent,” you lie through your freaking teeth, not feeling any guilt for doing so. Jaehyun is a normal part of your normal life that you don’t want ruined yet. So you get back to what you’re good at, ruffle Kyungsoo’s peach fuzz to the tune of his grumbles and tease, “It is my birthday, after all. Why didn’t you get me anything?” 

He babies you more in return, the best gift you get every year is always from him. You’re waiting for this year’s, twenty-five is probably the most important birthday yet. 

But Kyungsoo just stares at you with his serious gaze, then states, “You’re going to have to break up with him, you know.”

You will hold pride in yourself for not reacting beyond, “Excuse me?”

Your heart is being put through a lawn mower of emotional grind - the secret you worked so hard to keep is immaterial in your bodyguard’s knowing hands. You should’ve never let it get this far, you’re no-strings-attached to a fault, yet he was so, so, so hard to resist. What was the stupid clue that gave away you were spending time with someone you maybe kinda sorta really liked? You swear you weren’t smiling like an idiot, you left that in the private library room where he kissed you. 

Your bodyguard doesn’t peel his eyes away from the road this time. He just tightens his grip on the wheel, and carefully points out, “Mr. Lee is not eidetic enough to recall your favorite flower nor is he thoughtful enough to do something like this.” 

Mark gets you a gift card to Red Lobster every year. It’s an old time inside joke, but it’s certainly not a bouquet of asters delivered to you on the dot of your birthday. 

Kyungsoo is the scariest, strongest person you know, but you can measure up a little bit. You can stare straight ahead like he’s doing and glue your mouth shut. He can sit in silence for forever, but you’ve been alone with him enough that you know how to do the exact same thing. You're not going to admit to anything, he’s just making assumptions.

Until he says the worst possible thing, “You know the expectation.” 

Your heart deflates, and crushes out a sad, little, “I do,” right away.

A princess has to get married to a prince, a lord, a duke, a count, anyone that has the littlest bit of royal blood in their veins. Not an annoying surfer boy in her PhD classes. Not that you’d ever want to get married to someone as annoying as Jaehyun Jeong, but still. Having the choice is the point.

“I’ve been turning a convenient blind eye to your sneaking around and have never once pried since that was part of your agreement with the crown,” Kyungsoo reveals that he has known far more than you thought for far longer than you anticipated. “But I will need to be made aware, for your own safety.”

The tradeoffs of going to graduate school - no loitering outside your home, allowing you the freedom to sleep elsewhere for a night or two, not showing up to every evening in the library asking who you’re going to be spending it with. There was a reason you couldn’t be seen together with Jaehyun in public, and not because you were ashamed or annoyed. You suppose that trying to keep Kyungsoo from finding out was pointless in the first place - of course he’d find out, you’re sure he somehow knew the very first day. You wonder if he knows who it is, if he disapproves of the fact that you’re seeing a commoner. It doesn’t ultimately matter, you’ll just have one more person judging you for not being able to make the right choices. 

“My safety? Ha,” you laugh sarcastically.

He pulls the car off the road in front of your apartment building with a deafening skid, and you know that means you do not have permission to get out of the car until this conversation with him is done. You have to square up and face him, but his glare melts right through your tepid ice every time.

“Okay. If the paparazzi get snaps of you with this person like they did during your relationship with Mr. Park, would you rather I know or not?” Kyungsoo’s question is rhetorical, and you hate it. 

Chanyeol Park, the one and only boyfriend you dated junior year of high school, ended up selling couple pictures of you two to, like, every media channel for a popularity boost. Kyungsoo did something - to this day, you don’t know what - and he got the photographers and Chanyeol to stop showing up to school. It was definitely illegal, but he has some sort of diplomatic immunity in several countries that makes it impossible for him to go to prison. And Jaehyun would never do that.

“Yeah,” you whisper, contrite. 

“Who is he?” he asks. You know that’s the one and only time he’s going to, the only chance he’s going to give you to come clean before he gets more involved than you want. 

“He’s nobody. He’ll be nobody after tonight." You feel a total wave of sadness push you under its crest as you clutch at the blooms tucked in your lap. “He’s just a boy who got me my favorite flowers on my birthday.” 

Jaehyun is just a boy who got your favorite flowers on your birthday who you have more than nonexistent feelings for. He remembered your favorite flower. You can only remember one time you mentioned them - the two of you took the worst, carsick-laden trip to do volunteering in the middle of nowhere with your community engagement professor. You were so woozy when you got off the bus at the town garden you were going to help restore, saw the plants they had ready for you, and said, Huh. Asters, my favorite, before fainting. You didn’t think he even cared. 

And when Kyungsoo hears that, his terse grip on the steering wheel loosens, his severe eyebrow cut softens an impossibly tiny amount. He knows that, on a fundamental level, whoever this person is has to be very kind to do something like that. That whoever this person is is decidedly not your ex-boyfriend. Decidedly not like a lot of other people, either.  

Kyungsoo sighs, like it’s grossing him out to even have positive thoughts about this, and mutters through every fiber of him telling him not to, “I will be here at eight sharp tomorrow to head for the jet. You best be back long before then.”

You hug your flowers to your chest, pleased with that one concession.

You squeeze him arm with much gratitude, choosing to forgo a hug on purpose for his kindness and loyalty. That only multiplies when he opens up the glove box as you’re getting out of the car, and pulls out a small gift - wrapped in black matte wrapping paper you cackle at - that he hands to you with a uncharacteristically tender, “Oh, and happy birthday, your highness.” 

“You did get me something!” you chirp as you snatch it from him, shimmying in place on the pavement in glee. Turning twenty-five wasn’t so bad, after all. You tuck it in your purse, and then wave at him as you walk up to the entrance of your building and call, “That’s why you’re my favorite person, Soo!”

He hates when you call him Soo. But he lets you do it anyways. 

“Always, ma’am!” he calls back.

And then he leaves you at home alone, as he promised. 

—

You don’t get off the elevator at your floor, you take it five floors up to the dreaded eleventh floor that you pretend you don’t like spending your time on. It’s strange, walking up to the fourth door on the left side, going to Jaehyun’s apartment and feeling nothing but empty excitement. It’s a paradoxical mood -  being this stirred for the surprise to come and knowing there is a vat of loneliness lurking behind.

You’ve known his code since—, ha, the third time you slept together? He really gave it to you that fast? He’s a funny guy.

As soon as you let yourself in his place, you call, “Hey, sorry I’m late, Soo was—,” then promptly trip over yourself trying to take off a sneaker when you see what he’s set up. Your voice dips to that same shy, taken tone that came out when he’d shown up with the flowers, “What’s this?” 

There’s strands of tinsel draped on his plain window curtains, pink balloons taped up to his surfboard in the corner, a lopsided silver cardboard banner spelling out Happy Birthday raised over the oven, and the small table you’ve shared more than a few meals on is covered in fruit-laden, frosted cupcakes.  And Jaehyun is in the middle of it, changed out of his ridiculous Prada-esque outfit into your favorite look on him ever - a plain white tee and plaid pajama pants - smiling at you like it’s his happy birthday instead. 

“Surprise,” he says, using this rare, quiet voice that is your favorite too, deep and throaty and sexy and him. “It’s no royal ball or anything. Just a birthday party for my birthday girl.”

Your eyelids flutter shut with this shy burst of pride, feelings clogging the veins and arteries leading to and from your heart at the notion of him calling you his. In what world did he have possession over you? In what world did you give that up to him? In what world are you okay with that?

This one.

You put your bag down on the nearest chair, tenderly put the flowers on top of his kitchen counter so they won’t get lost in the hubbub, and drink in the sight of his cozy, decorated studio apartment. It’s the best thing you’ve ever seen - and your primary residence is a palace. You feel dumb for wanting to ask, and dumber for doing so, “Did you set this up instead of going to the mixer?”

Because the timing… it’s suspicious. 

“Yep,” Jaehyun confirms it fast, dimples shining proudly in his face. “Not a blackberry in sight, too. I checked myself.”

You can see that there are some weird dents and gaps in half the cupcakes, covered with the purple stain of where he picked out a fruit you were allergic to but he loved more than anything. You definitely never told him but he must’ve watched more than you thought - watched you pick them out of your salads and move them out of your fruit cups and avoid them at dinners.

Your chest crushes into this black hole of affection designed to draw him in.

There’s no way you can fold this easily though. You revert to the abrasive sexual tension that filled up your encounters before this, “You didn’t spend that time having sex with ten girls?”

You objectively know he left the library at the beginning of the night, came right here and cleaned and set this up, but you want the validation. That he didn’t take someone else to the date mixer when you turned him down. So maybe if you do have to get married, somehow… a similar situation can still happen.

Jaehyun reads your flirting, and flirts right back, “Twenty. And still had enough time to spare.”

“They must’ve been really unsatisfied—,” 

Before you can get the rest of your insult out, you find yourself getting cut off which you hate, "Shhhh, shhh," but then you’re quickly swept up in his arms, and once you’re staring into his face, you forget why you’re mad. Especially when he gets a bit whiny and cute, something he never does, “I know our thing is arguing, and I find you really hot every time you get into it, but I just want to celebrate tonight.” 

You pause for a moment, and weigh whether he means because of your birthday, or because he’s smart enough to know what’s going to have to happen tomorrow. He gets all cocky and self-important, lets his hands dip under your sweatshirt to hold you to him, corner of his lip going all crooked and puckered in the way it does when he’s getting ready to kiss you. 

You catch his face before his mouth meets yours, marvel at the unfamiliarity of this tender closeness, and you whine right back, “Hey, mister. You’ve gotta be patient! Have to make a wish first.”

You peck his cheek softly, and then you slip out of his arms to turn back around and face the mass of cupcakes he prepared for you. As soon as you do that, you feel the cradle of his hips meeting yours from behind, his hands twisting around your waist to hold you close, and your eyes flutter closed into total bliss. This feels so good. So, so good. 

“I didn’t have time to get candles,” he says right into your ear. “And cake is just as good the next day, please don’t make me wait much longer.”

He has such an agenda it’s almost comical, but it’s one of those irritating things about him you like the most. You move your neck out of the way when he tries to kiss you there and entice you into forgetting about this silly fantasy, into making some real ones happen in his bed. 

“You will wait,” you order in your most authoritative tone to tease him further. Just as teasingly, he obediently stops his fingers right in the waistband of your sweatpants so you’re in a race against the clock before you cave.  You lean the back of your head into his chest, and your words transform into this unheard of dreaminess,  “And I will pretend to make a wish. Even though I kinda got everything I wanted already.”

You can feel his smile from where his cheek is pressed into your hair, and you lift one of his hands off your waist and kiss the breadth of his palm in gratitude. You’re here with the cutest boy ever, who threw you the cutest party ever. What more could you want from your life?

That’s a bit of a cop-out question, of course, there’s a lot. But for the right here, right now situation you’re in, this is perfect.

So, tucked in Jaehyun’s arms, you fold your hands together and make your birthday wishes. Wishes, you’re a princess, you can stretch your birthday luck and make more than one wish. 

You want your grandma to have the best year of her life, to not be stressed and to smile even more than she did for the past year and to keep being proud of you no matter what. You want Mark to stop eating so many cheese fries when he knows he has high cholesterol, to find peace with not settling down if that’s what he wants to do, and to be your best friend for forever. You want Kyungsoo to laugh a little bit more and show you how to make cupcakes like he and not feel so worried about you every day. And you want everyone in America to be able to experience the exact level of prosperity and wealth and genial satisfaction that your privilege affords you. 

And you? Well, you don’t have to make any wishes just for yourself. You got everything you wanted. But maybe there’s one or two… or a few… you’ll keep a secret, for those days when you’re dancing at a ball on your birthday and don’t have the secret cupcake spread preceding it.

You picture the cutest little candle, it’d be purple and thin and lonely, and wish for everyone to be happy. Especially Jaehyun. 

Your lips part with the intent to extinguish that imaginary candle, but then-, then, they’re swept up in the lustrous presence of another’s, and you’re surprised with your first birthday kiss, ever. Jaehyun is too impatient to wait for you to be done - in the midst of your wishing, he’d twirled you to the side to kiss you freely, differently, with none of the hot lust that you swore was his signature. Instead, this indescribable sweetness takes over... no, no, it’s not that, it’s just pure happiness. You’re literally swept off your feet due to the strength of his grasp, feet skimming the floor as he spins you around and continues to press these soft, lovey kisses all over your mouth. He makes sure no spot goes uncovered, your top lip, your bottom lip, the corners, the curve of your cupid's bow, snuggling his way in so his lips are perfectly in between yours, each gesture spiking the heat of feeling in your heart even higher. 

You liked holding his face before and that’s all you’re going to do until you can never do it again. Stare in his eyes that are so tiny they’re almost nonexistent because of his smile, cradle his beautiful face like it’s the most precious thing in the world to you - which it kind of is - and warble out in this affected, hoarse, girly, stupid voice, “You are the sweetest person I’ve ever met. Thank you.” 

He planned a birthday party for you, knowing you wouldn’t be able to celebrate together. He’s the top of the list, a keeper for sure. The next girl… she’s going to be so lucky. You’re jealous already.

“No, that’s you,” he murmurs. You feel your features scrunch up in genuine appreciation for him, and your mouths meet in this middle for another kiss, before his his voice rings out, just as hoarse, “Come here.” 

You’re swept up again, legs hooking around his waist so you can hold him close, kiss the depth of his right dimple before you kiss his lips again. This time, the burdening urgency develops into the usual want, heightens into outright desire when he simultaneously lowers you back on the bed and slips his tongue in your mouth, flicks it past yours, licks the underside of your top lip with such cocky practice, and pulls the waistband of your sweatpants off of you in a second. A gasping whine erupts from your throat when he pulls away to take off his shirt. A gross, egregious display of manliness awaits as he smirks down at you and makes sure you get a good look at every single irritating ab, and the cool air rushes in to take residence where his blazing body heat was.

Most of the time you’re either too angry or too shy to do anything other than fuck him wordlessly, but he bares his hips down on yours, and his hair gets tangled up in your hands, and it comes bursting out of you, “You’re so hot, you’re so, so, so fucking hot." He laughs and you get so embarrassed, before he dips to kiss you with reserved affection, and makes you continue on, “No, handsome. You're so beautiful. Just beautiful everything.” 

A beautiful heart, too, but he doesn’t need his ginormous head to explode.

“Wow, a compliment,” he teases as he takes one hand of yours off of his face and presses his mouth to the breadth of your palm, punctuates it with his signature lewd tongue flick. He reaches to pull your sweater off, and you feel like such a fool eagerly raising your arms to help him before you’re settled back into the cradle of his arms so he can snap your bra off too, before he ogles you and muses, “Are you going to let me flatter you or is that just a tool for me to slither my way into the monarchy in a more literal sense?”

Your jaw drops, he misses it as he tries to kiss you and tuck his fingers in your underwear, and you… move your head right out of the way. You can hear his confused grunt when his lips meet just air. 

“You’re disgusting,” you gripe, and roll out from under him onto… onto the pillowcase he made sure was on your side of the bed.  

You stuff your face in it because you don’t want him to see this stupid squeal of glee and frustration that takes up your whole body. You don’t want this to be over, you don’t, who would ever buy you an expensive pillowcase from Amazon like this. You know this was a lot of money, you felt bad when you looked it up. 

His warm fingers slip between the blanket and your belly, touch gentle as he slowly rolls you over onto the pillow, and you get a stunning look at his contrite face. His fingers shift to lightly caress your features, and then he kisses you once, mouth closed, so pure, and whispers, “Sorry.” You’re about to cave just like that, but he’s caught up in the apology, holds your face in that same way - like it’s so precious to him - and gets even quieter, “Sorry, sorry, sorry. Don’t be mad.”

You’re not mad.

“No flattery,” you whisper, words getting caught up in the strange thickness of the moment, “No, just. Tell me you like me.”

He props himself up on his forearms so he can press his thumbs into the squish of your cheeks and tease, “The masses of adoring subjects don’t do it for you?” He holds one arm out like he’s gesturing to a crowd, makes all these noises, tries his best to get you to giggle, “Raaaaaaah, the screaming and the veneration and the endless praise for how poised and beautiful and charming you are isn’t enough?”

You’ve never struggled with meeting expectations - your grandmother has always set them high and you have always met them. Save for the incident with Chanyeol, there’s never been a bad thing said about you in the media beyond errant hate commenters. You feel well respected whenever you do interviews, the citizens you take weekly meetings with have nothing but pleasant things to say. All great boosts to your regular-sized ego. That’s not what you were talking about. 

“I don’t feel like a princess here, though,” you admit. You never do around him, even when he uses your title out of turn and is rude to you in class. You just feel like a regular college student getting caught up in a situationship with another college student. You gather up sparkling bits of courage, what you’ve polished since growing up into a poised princess, and use them to propel normal college you into confessing,  “I’m just a girl with the boy she likes, wondering if he likes me.” 

You never genuinely and plainly expressed what your emotions are for him beyond the vapid I hate you’s you’ve slung at each other. You’ve been having sex for months, and this whole time you’ve had a terrifying sense that you had feelings for him. And you’re here and you’re bare and you’re vulnerable and that makes you so nervous because even though Jaehyun is just a regular guy, he is the regular guy, and he could have so many ways of rejecting you–,

Jaehyun looks at you with this cute little grin stitching his lips up, and says quietly, “Yeah, he does.” 

Oh, what?

You don’t have a collar to clutch onto, but your fingers still leave an indent at the exposed base of your neckline. He sees that nervous twitch, tucks his hand under yours so you don’t mark up your skin, and that lights off a fire so intense in your heart. You peek up at him through fluttering, affected eyelashes, and whisper, “Yeah?” 

He has feelings too? Real feelings? You wouldn’t peg him as a liar, in fact, one of his faults is that he is too honest all the time, which means…

“Third person is weird. I like you so much, baby,” he murmurs as he sits up against his headboard, shifts you up off the pillow and brings you into his lap so you can sit face to face.

He doesn’t call you baby a lot - on those nights where nothing actually happens, it’ll slip out once or twice as he lulls you to sleep, and every time it makes your heart race. 

But him calling you baby pales in comparison to what comes out next, words that shove you into a pit of crazy crushing, “I like princess you and regular you and kind you and mean you.” You laugh, so, so softly at his last point, and his dimples blow out your vision when he smiles, pokes at your cheek,s and goes on, “Pretty you and not so pretty you because I’d never call a face that cute ugly-,” You know he’s not done but you lean in and kiss him anyways, snatch up his bottom lip, bite ever the tiniest bit because you know it drives him crazy. But before you can slip your tongue back in his mouth, his fingers on your bare waist tap, to get you to pause so he can finish, “Joyful you and pessimistic you, stressed out you and carefree you. I think I’d like every version of you I’d ever meet.” 

You’re half convinced he’s Prince Charming come to life.

You think there’s going to be some soul searing kiss when he’s done with his profession, that he’ll take the rest of your clothes off, set your soul ablaze with actions that match his words, but there isn’t. Jaehyun just tugs you close, hugs you, fits his nose right against the side of your jaw as his palm melds neatly to the back of your head. 

You hold the nape of his neck to steady yourself out from feeling all lovesick, press your cheek into his soft, soft, soft hair, then murmur into his ear, “Okay.”

Now he can’t take that back and you can’t ever erase it. You like Jaehyun and Jaehyun likes you and there isn’t a damn thing anyone can do about it.

He leans over to dot a rosette of affection against that spot on your neck, and he laughs against it, “Gonna say all that stuff when we’re in bed on my birthday? Or are you going to make me beg since you can’t ever say anything nice to me?”

A trident of emotional confusion spears you up in a three-headed attack. 

The sharpest prong is such sheer, girly joy, because he wants you to be there, when another year of his beautiful life has passed. You’re sure he’s expecting a real party to make up for this, plus sweet kisses in thousandfold and a turn in his bed far hotter than this one. All desires you share. The next prong is the acute stab of hollowed sadness, because you’re sure this is the only birthday you’re ever going to get to share, and you’re never going to find out when Jaehyun’s birthday is. And the final prong that finishes you off is straight up unadulterated guilt. Because you’re selfish and you don’t want this to be over even though it should be, and the only way you can be with him in the way that you want is if you lie to his face.

So you gather up Jaehyun’s handsome Prince Charming face, and you make the worst false promise of your life, “Of course I will.”

The pleased scrunch of his nose tells you he really believes it. 

He kisses you well and proper after, fucks you even better, and when you fall asleep tucked into the space between his side and the pillowcase he bought for you, there’s no guilt left. How could you feel guilty for being with the person you like one last time?

—

There’s no poignant moment in the morning.

Your eyes open, you catch a glimpse at the time on his microwave across the apartment, see that you’re already an hour behind schedule, and force yourself to get moving before you can loiter…. or have any kind of emotional breakdown to saying goodbye to someone so special. You find your discarded sweater and underwear dangling off the side of the bed, slip them on, and are on a quest to find your pants when you hear it, “Where ya going so fast?”

You blink the lingering sleepiness out of your eyes to see Jaehyun there at his table, two matching mugs of steaming coffee waiting, and two of those cupcakes from last night sitting side by side on a tiny pink plate. The image of those two pastries being the only ones he plucked out sends your heart soaring on a regretful rollercoaster. 

You find your pants there on the floor, shimmy back into them, and then, feeling some strange, urgent pressure at the back of your eyes, mumble, “What’s this.” 

“Breakfast,” Jaehyun answers, then holds out his hand. You reluctantly shuffle over and he pulls you onto his lap so he can kiss you good morning, fix your hair from where it got a little bit crazy during the night. Looking at him is getting harder and harder, and the pressure is getting worse and worse as he pulls that plate over and murmurs, “Cupcakes taste just as good the next day, so before you have to put on your fancy gowns and not eat, we’ll eat together.”

Your heart is sent spiraling into a plunge of deep, deep, deepdeepdeep affection you cannot explain. He knows that your birthday party isn’t going to be a real party - it’s a political event where you’re supposed to look and act perfect, and none of that involves being comfortable or fed. 

The rollercoaster hits the bottom trough of possibility, and when it ricochets up with an insane amount of kinetic energy, something dares to break past your lips, “I l-,” 

“What.” He lazily undoes the wrapper on one of the cupcakes, takes a bite out of it, puts on a big show of licking frosting off his lip and then just ruins you, “You gonna tell me you love me or something?” 

Um.

“I…” you try again, wondering if your heart’s desires will overcome your brain’s sensibility, and once again, the stronger of the two organs ends up victorious, “I have to get married.”

The bandaid is off and the fantasy has finally been exchanged for reality. Love may or may not be something you may or may not feel for him but that won’t ever be powerful or legitimate enough to change the law. And even though you… you might love Jaehyun, you maybe love him… not maybe. You have grown into someone who only lives the truth, and the truth of this is, is that you’ve been in love with Jaehyun for a good while now. But even though you love him, you would never allow yourself to compromise your loyalty to your family or your crown for him. 

He bites his lip with one speck of regret tangible in his demeanor, and squeezes your waist once before admitting, “Yeah, I know.” 

What? He knew? 

Your face crumples with the realization that you hadn’t been hiding anything from him. He chuckles so, so lightly it warms your sad little heart right up, “I’m getting a PhD in political science, after all. I know all the American law and customs, even the more regrettable ones.”

He knew. He knew this whole time and was more than okay with it - he was willing to get involved, to feel feelings, to throw you a freaking birthday party and was fine being left on his own at the end. He’s the smartest person you know, of course he’d have learned about this. He probably read through every American law just to annoy you. He said all that stuff last night because he… he knew it was going to be the end. He didn’t want to argue because he didn’t want your last time together to be ruined.

You feel so regretful you can’t even look at him. You just turn your head to the side and let out a contrite little, “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he laughs it off. “Pros and cons to being a princess’s boyfriend.” 

You get nervous and flustered all at once. You weren’t dating, you weren’t, but he just called himself your boyfriend, and really, that’s what he was. You kissed and had sex and studied and showed up to parties and argued and did it all together.

He was your boyfriend and you loved him.

“My, um. Mark,” you fumble, and Jaehyun gets the funniest look on his face when you bring up your cousin out of nowhere. That pressure in your eyes is the beckoning of a thousand teardrops, and it takes everything in you to will them not to fall so you can keep this happy, “He came by yesterday and showed me this ridiculous Powerpoint of these stupid husband prospects I’m supposed to meet today, and I. Well, I hated all of them.”

He laughs, and it’s not as pleasant as usual which means this is hurting him more than he wants to show. You’re this unsightly mess when you confess, “So he asked me to describe what I wouldn’t hate… and the person I described to him was you.” 

Handsome, smart, kind, Jaehyun Jeong, Jaehyun Jeong, Jaehyun Jeong, slap his picture in there and it wouldn’t have been a competition. 

His smile is self-satisfied, but his words come out insecure, “You could do that if you wanted, you know. Pick me. Sounds crazy, but I wouldn’t mind.” 

“I wish I could." This wasn’t your birthday wish, but you want nothing more than to just stay at school with him and experience what college life with a boyfriend is like. You regret that he hadn’t gone out and gotten candles, because you want a wish re-do. The tears get more insistent, and your need to escape becomes downright urgent at that point, “I should go.”

“No, you shouldn’t,” Jaehyun says. 

He cements his grip around your waist so you have nowhere to move, gets you up close and sitting pretty on him. He lifts his mouth to kiss the apple of your cheek, then whispers, “You and I are going to sit here, eat this cake, and I am going to kiss you until you get very angry at me for making you late to your second tier birthday party. Sound good?”

Whatever the palace has planned for you is going to pale in comparison to the night you just shared. It was so special. It was unforgettable, honestly. 

“Yeah,” you whisper back, the one word completely soaked through with sorrowful acceptance.

This is just it, then, you’re going to eat the cupcakes he plucked the blackberries off of, sleep with him one last time, and try not to spend it thinking about what’s going to happen from here? And in a month, you’re seriously just going to have to show up to class and pretend he’s only your colleague? You’re going to waltz by with a fiancé and a ring and pretend you both never had feelings for each other? Pretend you were never head over heels in love with him? That’s a criminal’s duty, to lie that much.

You should’ve known all along that he was more than just your classmate with benefits, because Jaehyun takes one look at your obvious distress and reads it right, “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be okay.”

The return question comes out laden in fearful tears, “What about me?”

He’s Jaehyun, he’s unflappable and cocky and has the ability to move on in whatever way he deems fit. But you? You don’t know how you’re supposed to undo this. 

“Baby, I don’t think anyone has ever had to worry about you,” he chuckles. “Those stupid prospects don’t know what they’re in for.”

See? He’s perfect. How can you get over that.

He sets out saying goodbye right there on the chair in his kitchen, with you on his lap just the way that he told you he liked the first time - a time when you never thought feeling this way was possible. And he more than fulfills his promise to make you late. Because he doesn’t just drag out your last time together as long as possible, until your body is combusting up to a point that you can’t take it any longer. He kisses you an uncountable times while he’s helping you get dressed again, and the cupcake takes forever to be eaten in between his continuing kisses, and then you spend an interminable length in the stairwell of your building, stopping on each floor as you descend, simply to kiss and hold each other. 

There is no pride to be derived from this, but you manage to not cry until the concluding stanza in this sodden, pitiful song. He sends you out of your building, and through the glass doors, gives you the most stricken little wave. Then, the dam cannot hold you together any longer. 

Jaehyun was your boyfriend, and that was a breakup.

tbc.